The Inspiration behind In the Paint by Philana Marie Boles
IN HER OWN WORDS
Double-click here to edit the text.
In the Paint is my second novel for adults and the first time I ever sat down to write something having absolutely no idea where the story was going to take me. What a journey!
Originally, the beginning of the manuscript—all that I had in mind when I began—was just a vision of the scene where Danni runs into Dallas after they’d been broken up for a while and—upon his request—joining him in his parked truck to talk for a moment. Every woman can relate to that feeling, no? Running into your ex-boyfriend when the feelings are still there… Whoo wee!
And it occurred to me then that I knew that feeling all too well. Danni’s story is not my story, no, but In the Paint is probably my most intimate writing experience.
While writing In the Paint, I decided that—because Danni is an artist—her story deserved to be told in a fun and sassy way, sure, but also in a more introspective and fluid tone. Artists are deep thinkers and feel intensely, whether its joy or pain. I know this. I’m an artist.
The more I delved into writing the story, the more apprehensive I became. I recall feeling like I had be firm, to take the wheel and carefully steer the words I was writing away from my own feelings. I had to keep Danni’s in tact.
I was raised in a two parent loving home with my birth mother and father. Danni grew up a foster child. I had never endured the abandonment as did she, no, but the way Dallas dumped her—so vaguely peculiar after she’d surrendered to opening up to him and the potential of their future together—was all too familiar to me...